UPDATED: Likely to cause sharp debate in the Colorado Legislature is a bill introduced by co-sponsor Colorado Sen. Suzanne Williams (D-Aurora), a member of the Comanche Nation. Specifically, it would target some 15 schools in the state, requiring each public high school or certain charter high schools using American Indian mascots to either cease their use or obtain approval for the mascots (or the go-ahead for an alternative American Indian mascot) from the Colorado Commission of Indian Affairs before 2013. The school districts in question would be required to notify the CCIA of the mascots’ use and the commission would evaluate the practice. School districts or institute charter schools could be fined for violating provisions of the legislation.

MONTROSE, Colo. – This community in western Colorado is in traditional Ute territory and is home to the Ute Indian Museum, but it also is home to “Indian” mascot-related issues that have divided residents and marred a high school graduation.

Most recently, an opinion piece in the Montrose Daily Press castigated Montrose High School for its headdress-wearing, face-painting, dancing, whooping mascot. It drew howls of outrage from mascot loyalists.

But the underlying issue goes back further for at least one family, and it may play a role in possible precedent-setting state policy that would encourage schools in Colorado to be more sensitive to issues concerning mascots and other symbols if they prove offensive to American Indians.

Photo courtesy A.J. Woodie Dakota Woodie, Oglala Lakota/Navajo, wore a headdress and moccasins his grandmother beaded for him to Montrose, Colo. High School athletic events not, his mother says, as a mascot, but because “he had the team spirit”and wanted to contribute to community diversity. Woodie is attending Fort Lewis College in Durango, Colo., but at his high school graduation last year he was not allowed to wear the headdress, nor was it permitted in a group picture for the school yearbook.

C.J. Brafford, Oglala Lakota, executive director of the Ute Indian Museum, has kept some things to herself until recently, despite the fact that her son, Dakota Woodie, Oglala/Navajo, was not allowed to wear a traditional headdress at his high school graduation last year.

She and Roland McCook, Northern Ute, a member of the museum’s board of directors, had earlier discussed the use of “Indians” for Montrose High’s athletic teams with the school and agreed the generic term was not offensive if used with integrity. Now, Brafford’s not so sure because it “does point to me – to who I am. And sometimes that ‘Indian’ can (become a) stereotype.”

She said it was painful when her son was told by school officials right before he was to receive his diploma that it would be withheld unless he removed the traditional headdress, and despite her urging, he walked across the field to the graduation ceremony without wearing it.

“Yet this is who he is – it’s a way of life.”

School officials said the headdress was large and would block peoples’ view, but another student’s mortarboard sported brightly colored balloons and “it looked like a gigantic pot of fruit,” she said. The school spurned the suggestion that her son remove the headdress when he was seated and only wear it when he stood to receive his diploma.

More recently, her sense of outrage was compounded when she saw a student wearing black and red face-paint on the front page of the Montrose High School Chieftain: “Here was a non-Indian painted up and on the front page of the school paper.” McCook said that while tribal nations used whatever paint colors were available to them as nomadic peoples, the black paint streaked with red to represent Indians doesn’t work for him: “I’m Indian, and it certainly doesn’t represent me.”

Although the school’s paper included the current mascot’s photo, her son, who is Native, could not wear his headdress in a group photo for the yearbook, although an individual shot did include it, she said.

In his junior year, her son wore a headdress that did not include eagle feathers and he wore moccasins his grandmother had beaded for him to school athletic events, because “he had the team spirit,” but “nothing designated him as a mascot” and he was simply cheering with the rest of the students, she said.

“We live in a diverse community and it was an opportunity for him to contribute to that.”

Both she and McCook see the controversy as an opportunity for education. “The school itself has a hallway called ‘Warpath,’” he said, noting that last year a girl was stabbed in the school and names like that could give students the idea they can behave in a violent way.

McCook, a former Northern Ute Tribe chairman and descendant of noted Ute Chief Ouray and Ouray’s wife, Chipeta, said a school policy on cultural matters might help. He was on a national panel convened by the NCAA to approve college athletics’ use of tribal names only if the tribes approved. His experience may foreshadow a difference in the way Colorado views Native depictions in schools.

Colorado Sen. Suzanne Williams, D-Aurora, a member of the Comanche Nation, also stressed the possibility that the school name/mascot issue could be used to inform students and the wider community about the Ute bands who were the area’s original inhabitants. Meetings among students, school officials and tribal representatives could also center on current Ute culture and such specifics as face-painting customs and general protocol.

“My hope would be that they get together and have a conversation.”

Williams is working toward a dialogue in the state legislature to seek approval for a policy that would coordinate with public high schools and some charter high schools over using positive sports names or mascots.

Such a policy, if achieved, would apparently be the first nationwide American Indian mascot procedure for high schools, although Williams believes few, if any, Colorado high schools have names offensive to American Indians.

The problem tends to arise with mascots, rather than school names, and they are “the area we’d focus on first,” she said, explaining that a school name, “Warriors,” might be neutral, but warrior-related mascots could become unflattering caricatures.

“I think it’s important for high schools that have American Indian names to have an understanding of the Indians that they represent,” she said.

Kevin Masterson, 18, confirmed he is Montrose High’s athletics mascot and was depicted in the school newspaper in feathered headdress and black face-paint streaked with red.

He and the school’s principal, James Barnhill, placed blame for the controversy not on Indian caricatures, mascot issues, or school policy disparities, but on the fact that the opinion piece’s author is a newcomer to Montrose who “doesn’t know the community,” as Barnhill put it.

“The community really values and honors the Native American experience in this valley, and our high school accepted the Indian as a mascot – it is to honor them and the history of this area,” Barnhill said, acknowledging that he is new to Montrose and is “still learning what’s important here and what’s not.”

Masterson said he paints his face in different ways and wears different attire to various athletic events, and echoed the sentiment that the opinion piece’s author was a newcomer who “doesn’t know anybody.” The “Indian” mascot is not disrespectful, he said, pointing out that the school has stopped using the “tomahawk chop.”

Recently in Montrose, radio talk shows were said to be fielding indignant calls, mostly in defense of the high school’s “Indian” name.

But, if some of those involved are correct, it’s all because a newcomer to Montrose, Billie Stanton, dared to write an opinion piece Jan. 10 in the Montrose Daily Press, of which she’s the new managing editor, that echoed Brafford’s and McCook’s concerns: “Ditch the headdresses. Eradicate the face paint. Stop dancing, and stifle those phony war whoops.”